Dragon Mobile Assistant

Full design process, from user research to visual and interaction design to prototype.

A team of four design students and I redesigned Dragon Mobile Assistant, a popular NUI personal assistant for Android. We worked closely with professional virtual assistant designers to receive mentorship throughout the process.

Process

Background Research

Literature review

Expert evaluations and task analysis

Analysis of Google Play user reviews

Focus group discussions

Analysis of survey data

Independently-run survey of 200+ mobile assistant users

Feature Development

50+ features

Divided into Must Have, Should Have, and Nice-to-Have Features

Concept Development

Concepts developed based on background research and features

Background Research

Qualitative Survey Results (example questions)

What do you like about your current mobile assistant?

Voice recognition

Efficiency/convenience

Hands-free capabilities

Personality

Usability

Functionality

Driving

What do you dislike about your current mobile assistant?

Voice recognition

Efficiency

Activation

Usability

Voice

Functionality

Privacy

Quantitative Survey Results

Research Analysis

Most frequent uses:

Voice calling

Navigation

Text Messaging

Problems with existing assistants:

Feeling of segreation

Often forgotten

Need to be “open”

Poor app integration

Little personality

Robotic conversations

Microphone icons

Lack of "delight"

Famous for being wrong

FEATURE DEVELOPMENT

Brainstorming

Sample Features (taken from list of 50+, based on research analysis)

Hands-free operation

In-car operation & safety

Feedback while speaking

Text message readback

Correct speaking errors

List of available features

Concept Development

Our prototype goes by the codename Tamagotchi- referencing the personality that came with the toy we all played with in the 90's.

Flexible

Tamagotchi will be accessible as a chat head on every screen.

In most mobile assistants, when a user requests to access another app (such as Spotify), the assistant brings them to the new app and then no longer be available.

With this chat head model, Tamagotchi will be with users every step of the way and allows for seamless app transitions.

Smart

Tamagotchi takes into account user patterns.

If the user frequently texts Joe on Facebook Messenger, that will be where Tamagotchi crafts a new text when text platform isn’t specified.

But, if the user decides to stray from the norm, he can easily correct the assistant.

Delightful

Tamagotchi allows users to customize faces and voices -- making it a truly personal assistant.

COming Soon

So far, this page only documents half of our design process :) The second half of our design process included: